“I visited the building your firm designed adjacent to the Corcoran Gallery…it is a jewel that will long be appreciated in our fair city.”

—Oliver T. Carr, Jr.

Description

An awkward infill site, a significant neighboring building, and a location in the heart of Washington DC’s monumental core presented a multi-faceted challenge for this boutique commercial office building. With its gently carved, sculptural glass form, the new building serves as an appropriate neighbor to the rich architectural quality of the adjacent Beaux-Arts Corcoran Gallery of Art and the formal autonomy of the adjacent ‘70s-era office buildings. A site that once stood out like a missing tooth on the street has now become a focal point, blending and unifying the block.

With the site’s limited footprint of 19,000 square feet, the design team also faced challenges to make the development economically viable. On the top three floors that rise above the Corcoran, 25-foot cantilevered floor slabs provide needed additional floor space, as well as remarkable panoramic views of the National Mall. To maximize access to daylight and minimize sightlines, the building features a column-free perimeter and expansive exterior curtain wall modules. Articulated at key points in the façade, the blue-green curtain walls reduce the overall massing of the building and provide a sculptural profile against the sky.